By IANS
Sao Paulo : Documents from several of the 154 people who died a year ago in an airliner crash in Brazil have been used fraudulently to purchase cars, telephones and other goods, according to the Spanish news agency EFE.
Quoting a report published in the O Estado de Sao Paulo, EFE said the victims’ families discovered the identity theft when bills and other documents related to the purchases started coming in after Sep 29, 2006, when a GOL airliner plunged into the Amazon jungle.
The case is now in the hands of the authorities trying to discover how others obtained the victims’ documents.
The airliner crashed in a remote region of the Amazon rain forest, which impeded the rescue of the victims that was carried out by fire fighters, the military and even Indians of the area.
“The bodies and the items recovered went through many hands,” the daily said. “How and when the looting took place remains unknown.”
The newspaper cited at least 10 cases including the obtaining of credit to buy a car last month at a Brasilia finance company with documents from one of the victims of the tragedy.
Until last month, the GOL airliner crash was the worst accident of its kind Brazil had ever witnessed.
Then on July 17, a TAM airlines plane crashed into a warehouse of its own company after landing at the Paulo’s Congonhas Airport in a disaster in which 200 people died.